Good Friday

[Dwane Mathews]

So far, everything I have posted has been censored here. Let's see how this one fairs.

I remember when Good Friday used to be a Religious Holiday. Most people got off of work, oftentimes with pay. It was treated much like Christmas.

What happened?

 

[Chris V++]

I'm off today with pay. I guess it depends on the company. The company HQ is in the Bible Belt, in North Carolina. We are also closed on Christmas Eve. We are pretty big too, almost on the Fortune 500 list.

 

[Monna]

I live in a "post Christian" country. Good Friday is still a holiday.

 

[PloverWing]

Good Friday is still a religious holiday. I will be (virtually) attending services this evening, and there are noonday services (virtually) available in my area as well.

Whether it's a state holiday depends on the state you live in. It's a state holiday here in New Jersey. I've always assumed it was because of the large number of Catholics in the state (thank you, Catholics!).

This may change as the percentage of non-Christian and nonreligious people grows. It's no longer the case that most people in the population want to spend Good Friday as a day of religious observance. Many low-church Protestants, like the Baptists I grew up with, already paid little attention to Good Friday. "Some judge one day to be better than another, while others judge all days to be alike."

It might be reasonable for our policies to switch to a system where you can take N number of days off work per year, and I might take Good Friday off, while a colleague might take the first day of Passover or another holiday off. Some employers have a system like that already.